Parental Controls in your iPad’s Settings Menu

by Moms With Apps on May 6, 2013

Recently I visited the Settings app on my iPad to update the privacy settings on my device. I discovered a variety of options for parents who wish to adjust their devices for different ages and stages. Here are some details to note:

From your home screen, find the Settings icon (above), and then go to General > Restrictions. To Enable Restrictions, you need to enter a 4-digit passcode. Once the passcode is entered, you can adjust a number of variables from Safari web browsing to the App Store. You can also filter media content by disabling access to explicit or adult material. Most notably, In App Purchases can be turned on or off on a device-wide basis.

Scrolling farther down on the Restrictions menu is an area dedicated to “Privacy”. In this section, parents can set preferences for location services, contact lists, and social media services such as Facebook or Twitter.

Given “Privacy” is such a hot topic these days, you can also access it directly from the Settings menu (Settings > Privacy) to view the controls:

Finally, you can control internet access on the device through the wifi and airplane mode settings which are at the top of the Settings Menu. And don’t miss the Notification Center, which shows all of the apps that are set up to send you messages or alerts. Here, too, you can manage alerts according to your preferences.

If you have recommendations for parents about making tablets kid-friendly, please leave a comment so we can continue the discussion. I want to be careful not to dissuade parents and children from browsing the internet together. Just because this post focuses on physical settings and boundaries, some of the best preparation we can do is browse together, pointing out appropriate and inappropriate sites throughout our browsing session. Teaching kids to discern different types of online content can our best tool yet. Thanks!